Maybe you have an idea for a new product that will revolutionise physiotherapy treatment of an injury or condition. 

How do you navigate the world of innovation to take your product to the market? 

First things first 

One of the initial steps in developing a new product is making sure that your product has a market, whether it is a completely new innovation or an improvement on an existing product. 

Pitchfest winner Brodwen McBain says the first step is to identify a need.

‘Identifying a “need” or a “gap” is one of the first steps. 

‘Physiotherapists are very well placed to do that because we interact with potential end users on a daily basis, whether it is other clinicians or patients. 

‘The next step is exploring what options already exist to make sure there isn’t a good solution already available,’ says physiotherapist Brodwen McBain APAM, who developed the One-80o Pronosupinator—an orthosis that is designed to mobilise the forearm into supination or pronation— alongside occupational therapist Jeff Sanderson. 

The product was the inaugural winner of the Physiotherapy Research Foundation’s Physio Pitchfest Judges’ Award in 2019. 

Sasha Job APAM, a physiotherapy lecturer at CQUniversity, whose U-BEACH: Beach Accessibility Manual Handling Training program won the Physio Pitchfest People’s Choice Award in 2023, agrees. 

Physiotherapy researcher Sasha Job believes that innovation should be built around meaningful change.

‘Start with the impact—who you’re helping and how their lives will improve. 

‘Physiotherapy is about empowering people to move, participate and engage fully in life, so I believe any innovation in this space should be built around real needs and meaningful change,’ Sasha says. 

She also says it’s never too early to start talking to end users as their perspective and their needs may change your approach. 

‘Engage with the community early, listen to their needs and be willing to evolve, as we did with U-BEACH when strong demand expanded our focus,’ Sasha says. 

Dr Leo Ng APAM says that from his experience, it’s best to talk to your end users sooner rather than later. 

He used Pitchfest in 2019 to introduce his Research Screener tool, which allows users to rapidly winnow out the useful and relevant research articles from the pile when doing a systematic review. 

He picked up the People’s Choice Award, even though his product was still a few weeks from being ready to launch. 

Leo Ng says customer feedback is important.

‘We hadn’t finished the product yet; it was two weeks before it was due to be released and we really needed the validation that it was something customers wanted. 

‘If we’d had feedback that no-one was interested in it, we probably wouldn’t have kept going,’ Leo says. 

Instead, researchers who attended his Pitchfest presentation were keen to know when they’d be able to use it. 

‘It gave us the confidence to continue building it, which for a startup company at the early stage is very important.’ 

For many products—such as the endometriosis support platform Matilda Health—co-design and stakeholder input is critical. 

Dr Kevin Wernli APAM and Joanna Morris APAM knew from the start that they would need to work with people who had lived experience with endometriosis to design the app. 

Their input helped to focus the product from being a general endometriosis support app to specifically offering support pre- and post-endometrial surgeries. 

‘Speak to your customers. 

‘Try to reduce that iteration/feedback loop to as short a time as possible so you can get your product to market, even if it’s not a nice polished version. 

‘Don’t wait too long—you should be embarrassed by the first version you release—and then try to get feedback quickly to solve your customer’s problem,’ says Kevin. 

Although it might seem counterintuitive, start thinking about how you might market your product early on. 

Will you need to find distributors or can you sell your product yourself? 

Do you plan to expand into international markets and how might that affect your product development pathway? 

Alex Roberts APAM started off manufacturing his STIC^TM magnetic walking aid on his kitchen table. 

As demand for the product grew, he was able to find a manufacturer to make the product and send it straight to his Australian distributor, which supplies it to mobility aid stores around the country. 

It’s also available through his website— he and his family manage the sales volume there—and through Amazon and its distribution infrastructure to the UK market. 

Alex says it was a huge learning curve for him to learn the business side of innovation. 

For Alex Roberts, gaining the business skills needed for success was key.

‘You learn how to write good cold emails, establish relationships and talk in a business sense, creating value behind the product. 

‘It’s all new skills that we have to learn but physiotherapy puts you in good stead because you’ve already got the interpersonal skills and you know what you are talking about. 

‘They tend to believe you because you see it firsthand with patients; you’re in the real world,’ he says. 

Other factors to think about include how you might manufacture your product or if there is an app or software platform that could help you with software development. 

Daniel Hug APAM, who developed an app to assist residential aged care staff to assess and manage falls, says having a partner who took care of the coding side of the business helped immensely. 

‘Don’t do it alone. 

‘Find yourself a partner, particularly if you’re a physiotherapist or working in healthcare; find yourself someone who understands the tech side o f it,’ Daniel says. 

Finally, how much will your product cost consumers to buy or use? 

For example, Research Screener is priced on a per project basis but institutional pricing is also available, while Matilda Health is available for a fixed price to patients planning to undergo laparoscopic surgery for endometriosis. 

Gavin Williams was part of a team developing a website for assessing spasticity.

The Spasticity Assessment website—another Pitchfest winner—developed by Professor Gavin Williams FACP and his colleagues at Epworth Hospital is currently available as a freely accessible website, with an app to follow. 

For Alex, pricing the STIC magnetic walking aid is a juggling act between manufacturing costs and the cut taken by distributors. 

‘The wholesalers sell it on to mobility aid stores and they have their cut. 

‘It gets chopped up along the way,’ he says. 

‘It’s a volumes game. 

‘You’re not going to make a lot of money selling one or two but if you can sell 1000 or 2000 and get STIC on every stick, then we can start scaling and improving that profit margin a bit more.’ 

Mentors, accelerators and money 

Developing a new product should not happen in a vacuum—there are people and programs out there to help. 

Finding the right people to partner with and to support your innovation is important as no one person has the expertise to do everything. 

Startup groups on Facebook and other platforms provide networking and community for would-be entrepreneurs and innovators (see below for a list of startup groups). 

For Alex, Sydney Startups was a huge help in finding the right person to work with to design his magnetic walking aid. 

He says the regular pitch nights held by Fishburners (another Sydney-based innovation community), were also very helpful for honing his pitching skills and getting advice. 

‘There’s a lot of experts out there and there’s a supportive community to answer any questions you have. 

‘When you’re a solo entrepreneur, you have to make sure that you put yourself out there because you don’t have a partner to bounce ideas off,’ Alex says. 

Universities also play a major role in supporting innovation. 

Many universities have innovation programs that offer accelerator and incubator programs to innovators. 

These are also often supported by state government innovation programs (see breakout for some starting points). 

Kevin Wernli's endometriosis app Matilda has recently been awarded a state government grant for further development.

When Kevin and Joanna started collaborating on developing their endometriosis app, Kevin had recently participated in a startup program in Perth for a separate project. 

He and Joanna ended up completing (and winning) the Perth Biodesign for Digital Health program with their endometriosis app. 

Since then, they have actively sought other innovation opportunities such as pitching competitions like Pitchfest and accelerator programs. 

They’ve successfully received funding from international angel investors, gynaecologists, private investors and grants—including, recently, more than $420,000 from the Western Australian Future Health Research and Innovation Fund to support continued development and validation of their digital endometriosis surgery optimisation program. 

‘We’ve raised capital from international investors and been successful with grants but my metric of success is how much impact we are having. 

‘We’re not at the stage where I can say that we’ve been really successful yet but that’s what drives us,’ Kevin says. 

For Kevin and Joanna, the mentors they found during their incubator experience have continued to help out. 

‘There are a number of mentors from Perth Biodesign who are still on our advisory board today. 

‘These accelerators can be really good places to meet people and learn good content, which is incredibly valuable if you’re doing it for the first time,’ Kevin says. 

It’s OK to fail 

Daniel Hug won Physio Pitchfest in 2022 for his aged care falls app, but has since discontinued its development

The reality is that not all new and innovative products make it to market and even if they do, they may not be successful, for many reasons. 

Last year Daniel made the tough decision to stop developing SummaRise, his aged care falls app, after not getting the market response he had hoped for. 

While it stung to close the business, he doesn’t regret the experience and says he took some valuable lessons from it. 

‘It was a massive learning curve and I take a lot of success out of that,’ he says. 

Physio Pitchfest tip—do your research 

• Know the problem you are trying to solve. Understanding your users and the potential market, alongside what customers might be willing to pay for your product, will help you develop a solid business plan. This will make pitching your product much easier.
• Talk to people about your product. They may have insights that can help you to refine and better position it. Take feedback on board and use it to improve your product. 

Physio Pitchfest tip—perfect pitching 

• Make sure you practise, practise, practise your pitch. Previous pitchers suggest practising in front of people who are not in your field, then taking that feedback on board and honing it.
• Create a story or narrative around your product and use lived experience— your own or your patients’—to bring your pitch to life. 

Finding help with innovation 

• State governments provide funding and support to innovators within their states and work in partnership with industry, the financial sector and research to encourage innovation at all levels.
• Most universities in Australia have innovation programs including incubators and accelerators.
• Innovation communities/networks provide members with access and connections to mentors, experts and investors. For example:
  • Facebook has several large communities based in different states, such as Melbourne Startups and Sydney Startups
  • Fishburners (fishburners.org) is a Sydney-based community of startups and entrepreneurs
  • Spacecubed is a Perth-based organisation offering incubator/accelerator programs and co-working spaces
  • Networks for innovations in the healthcare and biomedical space include Biodesign Australia, AUSCEP and CICA Lab. 

2025 Physio Pitchfest applications close soon 

Do you have an innovative idea or concept that addresses an unmet clinical need? 

Or one that could advance practice and improve patient wellbeing? 

Then Pitchfest could help you progress it. 

It’s time to get started on your application because they close on 31 May. 

The recipient of the Pitchfest Judges’ Award will take home $15,000 to put towards further development and marketing of their product or service and the People’s Choice Award winner will receive $4,000. 

Pitchfest will be held at the APA’s Scientific Conference, APASC25, in Adelaide in October.